New payments bank launched in India, Fino Payments Bank
New bank for “millions of hardworking Indians”
India has seen the launch of its fourth payments bank, Fino Payments Bank. It joins Airtel Payments Bank, India Post Payments Bank and Paytm Payments Bank.
For its core banking system, the bank uses Profile from FIS, delivered on a hosted basis. The same system and set-up is already used by a number of other Indian banks, including North East Small Finance Bank and Bharatiya Mahila Bank.
Fino was originally set up as a domestic remittance and paytech company in 2006 and has been profitable since 2010. It received the authorisation from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to operate as a bank in March 2017.
“We are the first payments bank to go live with 410 branches and more than 25,000 banking points on day one,” it states on its newly launched website.
Its Fino Money Mart outlets were converted into bank branches.
“Payments bank licence couldn’t have come at a more opportune time for us when the digital payments and banking ecosystem is in place,” states Rishi Gupta, MD and CEO of Fino Payments Bank.
“We intend to make banking simple and convenient to millions of hardworking Indians through a mix of physical and digital platforms.”
The bank will offer a broad range of products and services, including current and savings accounts, remittances, lending, mobile banking, life and general insurance and bill payments.
“We plan to acquire three to four million customers in the first year with the aim of increasing it to 50 million with a deposit base of INR 100 billion [$1.6 billion] in five years,” Gupta says.
“We plan to build a network of over 100,000 points and 1,000+ branches.”
Fino Payments Bank is backed by ICICI Group, Bharat Petroleum, Blackstone, International Finance Corporation (IFC), Corporation Bank, Union Bank of India, and Indian Bank.
It also has a strategic partnership with ICICI Bank, whereas it sells ICICI Bank’s products through its network.
